Arch Linux

Matt_D

Member

Registered: 2008-01-05

Posts: 9

Uber-Noob Question about automounting USB hard drives

First, let me say I'm not just new to Arch, but new to Linux as well.  Been playing with it off & on for years, but mostly 'off'.  In the last 3 weeks I've installed 10-12 different distros between my 2 home PC's and VMware on my laptop.  I've installed Arch probably 5 times now, and have got the process down pretty good.  I've probably learned more about linux from installing and configuring Arch than any other distro, book, web site, etc.  So now I've got it up and running again in VMware on an Ubuntu 7.10 install on my old pc.  I've got gnome working, sound is fine, samba is fine, really no problems.  Except mounting USB drives.  I've read several posts here and the wiki, but nothing seems to be clear really. 
I think it may be a problem in the VM environment, but I want to be sure.  I'm planning to replace my Sidux install on my main PC with Arch later today or tomorrow.  Assuming I get it installed, and get gnome installed, will the gnome volume manager work like it does in other distros?  I don't mind doing the config by hand, but I do a lot with USB flash drives and USB hard drives, and it seems like it just doesn't work very well in Arch.  I actually replaced my ubuntu install last week with Arch, but got tired of trying to access my music on my USB drive, never could get it to mount.  So I just re-installed Ubuntu (shame on me, I know). 

So any help in getting some understanding in what needs to be done would be greatly appreciated.  (forgot to mention, I did follow the wiki steps for autofs, as well as the usb drive wiki stuff). 

Thanks.

rocktorrentz

Member

From: Southampton, England

Registered: 2007-08-05

Posts: 141

Re: Uber-Noob Question about automounting USB hard drives

This might help: wiki link. I don't use gnome but in KDE you need to have hal in the daemons array in rc.conf for automounting to work, so if the above guide doesn't work, try that.

daf666

Member

Registered: 2007-04-08

Posts: 470

Website

Re: Uber-Noob Question about automounting USB hard drives

Try this:
1. plug in the USB device
2. create a dir /mnt/usb
3. type: dmesg | tail
4. then mount the new dev you saw in dmesg like this: mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/usb
5. if this works, you can fix /etc/fstab: /dev/sdc1               /mnt/usb      vfat      user,noauto                     0       0
6. now you can play with autofs and stuff

Matt_D

Member

Registered: 2008-01-05

Posts: 9

Re: Uber-Noob Question about automounting USB hard drives

I've done that (been doing alot of reading today & yesterday). 

So it works fine for you in KDE?   If so, that's good enough for me.  I think in a 'normal' environment (i.e., not a virtual machine) I can get it to work if it's working okay for most other people.  Just want to be sure that it does work okay for others.  I read something on another forum (not sure which one, sorry) that mentioned that it's never worked right in Arch, but I think the post was from 2006, so I'm hopeful it's all working as advertised now.

Matt_D

Member

Registered: 2008-01-05

Posts: 9

Re: Uber-Noob Question about automounting USB hard drives

Try this:
1. plug in the USB device
2. create a dir /mnt/usb
3. type: dmesg | tail
4. then mount the new dev you saw in dmesg like this: mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/usb
5. if this works, you can fix /etc/fstab: /dev/sdc1               /mnt/usb      vfat      user,noauto                     0       0
6. now you can play with autofs and stuff

good stuff, didn't see this before my last reply, will try when I get home in an hour, thanks.

Matt_D

Member

Registered: 2008-01-05

Posts: 9

Re: Uber-Noob Question about automounting USB hard drives

no luck, saying to hell with it for now, will try again when I install on my regular pc.  I'm convinced it's just many times harder to solve problems when running in a virtual machine, to many variables, many which I may not even be aware of. 

I'll update this with what worked for me, or I'll beg for more help once I'm done installing.

Rumor

Member

From: Albany, NY

Registered: 2006-07-07

Posts: 638

Re: Uber-Noob Question about automounting USB hard drives

This might help: wiki link. I don't use gnome but in KDE you need to have hal in the daemons array in rc.conf for automounting to work, so if the above guide doesn't work, try that.

I use gnome, and the above applies as well. Hal in your daemons array and your user as a member of the storage group. My USB thumbdrive, digital camera and mp3 player automount just fine.

---

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Matt_D

Member

Registered: 2008-01-05

Posts: 9

Re: Uber-Noob Question about automounting USB hard drives

it's all working fine now, the problem was in the VM.  I installed Arch on my main PC, and except for being an idiot, all went well.  My USB drives automount in gnome, as does my CD.  Haven't tried the ipods yet, but I'm sure there won't be a problem.  Key for me:  add my user to the storage group and reboot (logging off would of done the trick too I'm guessing).  Had the same problem with setting up X, needed to reboot and all was well.  Great distro, a helluva lot of fun to install and configure, and I've only done so little:)